This blog used to be called EDL Extra. I was a supporter (neither a member nor a leader) of the EDL until 2012. This blog has retained the old web address.****************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************

Saturday, 9 March 2013

Why Can't Islamic Terrorists Represent Islam?

Josh Russell: “These [terrorists] can’t be
taken as representatives of Islam.”

“These terrorists can’t be taken as
representatives of Islam.” Why? Why is that? Why can’t they be taken as
representatives of Islam? Why shouldn’t
they be taken that way? If this writer offers other “representatives of Islam”,
why should I, and others, take them to
be representative of Islam? Who would decide such an issue? How would such an
issue be decided?

Presumably, this man, or others like him,
would take the Muslim family of the BBC’s EastEnders
as being truly representative of Islam. Or perhaps the women in the Vancouver
Muslimah Feminist Lesbian Collective (which doesn’t as yet exist) really represent Islam. But why should
I, or anyone else, take such Muslims as representatives of Islam? Perhaps,
instead, they should be taken as being representative
of how the secular West can influence Muslims in a positive and non-Islamic
way. In that sense, they can hardly be representative of Islam at all.

So what about the average Muslim in the UK?
Is he “representative of Islam” simply because he doesn’t plant bombs or he
hasn’t got a long beard? In what way
would he be representative of Islam? In any case, in all movements and religions
only a minority of people are activists or are people who proselytise for the
religion or ideology. The fact that most UK Muslims don’t plant bombs or
proselytise on the streets means nothing.
Actually, it does mean something. It means they are too busy earning a living
or looking after their families to plant bombs or proselytise on the streets.
It also means that there is a very good chance that they support, or at least
rationalise and justify, the men who do plant bombs and proselytise in the
streets. That is, the majority of UK
Muslims who don’t plant bombs or proselytise in the street do support, or at
least rationalise and justify, those other Muslims who do plant bombs and proselytise
in the streets. Again, not every Muslim, or Nazi, or Communist, or member of
the Conservative/Labour Party, can be an activist. That’s not how it works in
politics and when it comes to ideological or religious activism.